


a buried past, flowering

by ghostbandaids



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, BAMF TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Blood and Injury, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Foster Care, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, Older Sibling Wilbur Soot, POV Wilbur Soot, Protective Wilbur Soot, Siblings, Snippets, TommyInnit-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Unbeta-ed, Wilbur Soot-centric, tommy is magic, tommy is on a mission, wilbur is oblivious, wilbur is really fucking confused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29229195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostbandaids/pseuds/ghostbandaids
Summary: Next to Wilbur’s elbow, one of the candle flames started to grow in size and stretch, almost curiously, towards him. Tommy’s eyes widened and he snapped his fingers together. Like a chastened pet, the fire shrunk back to a manageable size“Maybe I should put those out,” Tommy said quickly. “It’s windy.”Outside, the air was heavy and the leaves in the trees hung listlessly.Tommy is busy trying to save the city, and Wilbur is just trying to figure out what’s going on and why Tommy keeps giving him crystals and using all the salt to make protection runes around the house.
Relationships: Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 29
Kudos: 1017
Collections: Cheshire's MCYT recs!, Completed stories I've read





	a buried past, flowering

**Author's Note:**

> this piece will be removed if ccs ever express discomfort, title from _partners in crime_ , coma cinema
> 
>  **CW:** minor injuries, depiction of something (a monster lmao) being killed, discussion of dead parents, rituals/traditions with wiccan origin
> 
> premise: i didn't want to write a full plot so you get wilbur's perspective, and he doesn't really know what tommy's up to even though it's blatantly obvious. mostly snippets, a little bit of plot at the end. there's probably grammar mistakes; my proofreading was minimal. enjoy!

“Here,” Tommy said, pushing a smooth, black rock into Wilbur’s hands as they prepared to leave for school in the morning.

“Did you just give me a rock?” Wilbur asked, not sure if he should be insulted or confused or maybe happy at the fact that Tommy, the little hoarding-child that he was, had just given him what appeared to be a gift. 

If a stone, still warm from exiting the boy’s clenched fist, counted as any sort of gift. He could see their faces reflected on its glossy surface, his brow furrowed in confusion next to Tommy’s smile.

“It’s black tourmaline,” Tommy said, grinning. “Put it in your pocket, yeah?”

Mouth full of cereal, Wilbur watched Tommy throw his bowl in the sink and sling his backpack over his shoulder, stuffing his feet in dirty tennis shoes without even bothering to untie the laces.

“Why did you give me a rock?” he asked in confusion, but the boy was already darting out the door and climbing into the driver’s seat of his car, waving as he backed into the street. Wilbur waved back.

 _Maybe he just liked how it looked,_ he reasoned. _And he happened to know the name of it and insisted I keep it on me._ Either way, it was too late for an explanation and Tommy’s actions were often unexplainable. 

Wilbur stuck the stone in the pocket of his jacket — the one that he was almost always wearing — and forgot about it. He had college classes that day so there were much larger things to occupy his mind than the little black pebble barely weighing down the fabric.

“Where were you?” Phil asked as Tommy swung through the kitchen on the way to his room, out of breath like he’d been running. “If you borrow the car you have to let me know when you’re going to be back with it.”

“Sorry,” Tommy said, shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet, “I was at painting club.” 

“You’re in a painting club?” Wilbur asked from the doorway. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you make art.”

“Yeah, I mean— Tubbo’s in it too! Ask him if you want.”

“What do you paint?” Phil asked.

“Women.”

“Tommy!” 

“Don’t worry, they’re clothed.”

“Thank goodness,” Wilbur said, exaggerating his sigh of relief. That was when Tommy shifted forward again, eyeing his bedroom door, and Wilbur saw his hands. 

Something was spread over his fingertips and under his nails. Something streaky and flaky and wet. Something red.

“Is that paint?” Wilbur asked, gesturing to his hands.

“Oh,” Tommy said, holding them up and freezing when he saw the red. “Yeah, I uh— I spilled some. That was why it took a long time— I had to clean up.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Tommy said, inching towards the bathroom. “I’m going to wash it off now.”

“Okay,” Wilbur said slowly, trying to decide if Tommy was telling the truth. “Dinner’s ready. Phil waited for you.”

“Great! I’ll be down in a second.”

The bathroom door closed and locked, the sound of running water muffled but audible. 

When Tommy returned to the kitchen after several minutes, there was no sign that his hands had been covered with paint — if it had been paint at all. Instead, they looked as if they’d been scrubbed raw.

 _It was paint, right?_ Wilbur thought. _Not much else that it could have been._

The pasta that Phil had made was delicious.

Wilbur was writing a paper for a class — Contemporary Cults and New Religious Movements, one of the more interesting humanities courses — while Techno cooked something at the counter. The words swam in front of his eyes but he refused to leave it half-finished, jotting a couple of sentences down to revise later.

“Hello!” Tommy shouted, running into the room and sliding across the tiled floor in socked feet. “Do we have salt?”

“Yes,” Techno said. “In the cupboard. What do you need it for?”

“A project.”

Techno sighed. “That’s not a very good explanation.”

“Fine,” Tommy said, jumping to grab the salt carton from the shelf. “I need it for cooking club.”

“Since when are you in a cooking club?” Wilbur asked, exasperated. “I thought you were too busy painting every night.”

“I’m in lots of clubs,” Tommy answered. “Just ask Tubbo. I’m an involved man” 

“Sure,” Wilbur said, unconvinced. Tommy left the room and Wilbur went back to writing. He didn’t think about the salt again until Phil got home from work. 

“Why is there salt all over the sidewalk?” the man asked. Techno and Wilbur looked at each other.

“Tommy!” Techno yelled. “Get down here!”

“What?” Tommy asked innocently as he walked into the room. 

“I thought the salt was for cooking club,” Wilbur said. 

“It was, I—”

“Why can’t Techno teach you how to cook?” Phil interrupted. “He’s pretty good.”

“He makes everything too salty,” Tommy answered.

“Not anymore,” Techno muttered. “Because all of our salt is on the sidewalk. Remind me why it’s there, again?”

“Well,” Tommy said, drawing the word out like he was thinking of an excuse, “I was taking it out to put in the car so I wouldn’t forget it when I tripped. And it went everywhere.”

“This looks a little different than a spill, Toms,” Wilbur said, peering out the kitchen window. The yard and driveway were covered in looping white lines and concentric circles of salt, all converging around the front door. 

“Well,” the boy repeated, “The first part was a spill. Then I just thought that it looked cool.”

“Tommy,” Phil sighed. “I think that you should stick to painting.”

“Fine. But can you leave those—” he nodded towards the lines, “— until it rains, at least? Look how pretty they are!”

Wilbur had to admit that they were impressive, intricate and looping, more beautiful than the messes Tommy tended to make. 

“Okay,” Phil sighed. “But no more salt-art.”

“Fine,” Tommy said, glaring. “Limit my creativity.”

Salt was added to the shopping list tacked to the fridge while Techno complained that everything was going to be bland until they got more. 

When it rained that night, the salt lines sunk into the yard and the driveway. If anyone had listened, they might have heard a faint humming when it happened, barely noticeable over the pattering rain. But nobody did.

And that was that. 

It was the time of night when the shadows bled down the walls, blurring the definition of everything in the house. Wilbur’s dim desk-lamp did nothing to dispel the darkness, its blurry yellow glow only adding to the distorted lighting. 

He was working on another paper — maybe he needed to think about lightening his course load next semester — when he heard the door swing open quietly. 

Everyone had gone to bed hours ago so when he crept down the stairs holding a heavy textbook, his heart pounded treacherously. He took each step carefully, movements slow to avoid the creaky floorboards he knew by heart. 

The figure at the bottom of the stairs was taking off a puffy coat and slipping off their shoes and—

“Tommy?” Wilbur said, hoping that he’d guessed right and that he wasn’t mistaking a burglar for his little brother.

“Yeah?” the boy answered, not looking up, though the process of shoe-removal couldn’t possibly take that long. 

“Are you alright?” he asked after taking a steadying breath and reassuring himself that the house wasn’t being broken into. 

“Fine,” Tommy mumbled, trying to walk past Wilbur without looking up. 

There were splotches of red on his shirt. 

“Is that blood?”

“It’s paint, dumbass,” Tommy answered sarcastically, ignoring the fact that Wilbur had blocked the door frame and trying to squeeze past him. 

“Shit!” he hissed, wincing as one of his arms brushed against the wall.

“Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine.”

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“I’ll get Phil.”

Tommy glanced up, eyes lit with something Wilbur thought was fear, though he didn’t see the expression often. 

“Don’t tell Phil,” he said quietly, almost pleading. “He’d be mad.”

“He wouldn’t be mad,” Wilbur said reassuringly. “Comes with the territory, taking kids like us in.”

This close, he could see a cut along Tommy’s eyebrow and drops of blood threatening to fall from his nose onto the floor. And the way he clutched his arm to his chest couldn’t mean anything good.

“Bet you’ve never gotten in a fight in your life,” Tommy said. 

“Believe me when I say I have.”

“I bet you lost.”

“I did,” Wilbur laughed softly. “Oh, I did. Who were you fighting, Toms?”

“Fighting?” Tommy said defensively. “I wasn’t fighting.”

“You— you just said that you were.”

“No I didn’t,” Tommy insisted. “I was going for a walk and I fell— Honestly. I’m a peaceful man— is there a word for that?”

“You are the furthest from a pacifist that any man has ever been.”

“Rude,” Tommy said, grinning. Even with blood dripping down his face, he looked so young and Wilbur knew Tommy would hate it, but he almost couldn’t stop himself from wrapping his arms around the boy and never letting go. “But you’re probably right.”

“Let’s go to the bathroom, yeah?” Wilbur said, gently taking Tommy’s uninjured arm. “There’s a first aid kit in there from before Tech started online school.”

“Okay,” Tommy said, letting himself be lead down the hallway.

 _Don’t ask what he was doing,_ Wilbur told himself. _Yet._

He knew the sinking feeling that started in the pit of his stomach when someone he trusted started asking a few-too-many questions. The tension and the fear that eventually led to closing up completely. He wasn’t going to let that happen between him and Tommy. 

The cuts on Tommy’s face were tinged by something dark that Wilbur did his best to clean out with alcohol wipes, slowly and gently. It must have burned, but the boy didn’t even flinch. 

_What is this from?_ he wondered, looking down at the blackish residue mixed with blood. If Tommy had been fighting, maybe someone had been wearing brass knuckles — a dirty thing to do. And if he’d really fallen, he must have fallen hard. Maybe into oil or tar or something — something else.

“You okay?” he asked, pausing for a second to look the boy in the eyes.

“Yeah,” Tommy answered, seemingly unphased. Wilbur finished cleaning the cuts on his face and put plasters on them. 

“Can I look at your arm?”

When Tommy shook his head no, Wilbur didn’t say anything, trying to keep his expression encouraging as he met Tommy’s eyes. Slowly, the boy lifted his arm and pulled his sleeve up. 

Underneath it, there were more cuts, deep and angry and accentuated by the black liquid that covered them.

“I don’t suppose you’d be open to going to the hospital—” 

“—No hospitals,” Tommy interrupted, “I don’t do hospitals.”

“Okay,” Wilbur sighed. “No hospitals. I can do this.”

Tommy gritted his teeth as Wilbur used a new rag to wipe his arm as gently as he could, considering that the black liquid seemed almost hesitant to leave the boy. 

Clean, the cuts seemed much smaller. Less severe. 

After spreading copious amounts of ointment over them, Wilbur wrapped them in gauze and patted Tommy on the head. 

“All done,” he said. “I hope there’s not a next time, but I’ll always help you if you need it.”

“Thanks,” Tommy whispered. He surged forward and wrapped his arms around Wilbur, just for a second, before pulling away and leaving the bathroom. 

Wilbur stood frozen, listening to Tommy’s bedroom door click shut. 

The boy had been at their house for months and he’d never hugged any of them. Not once. Sure, he was okay with the shoulder taps and the occasional hair ruffle but he’d never initiated more and they’d been careful not to push him. 

Wilbur smiled and left the black-stained rags to deal with later, wondering whether he’d get a good grade on his assignment and hoping that soon, Tommy would trust him enough to tell the truth. 

When he used the bathroom in the morning, the rags were bleach-white as if they’d never been used. 

_Phil must have done laundry,_ he thought. _How else could they be clean again?_

Wilbur had to admit that four guys living in a house meant that it didn’t always smell great. If there wasn’t food cooking, the faint aroma of gym clothes often drifted from the hamper in the bathroom. Or from Tommy’s sneakers — only allowed in the house because when Techno had threatened to throw them away a couple days after Tommy arrived, the boy clutched them to his chest and refused to set them back down for hours. 

_He’d managed to keep them for years_ , he’d said, _and wasn’t about to lose them now._

Techno assented and the shoes took up residence next to Phil’s dress shoes and the piles of sneakers in the entryway.

It was a good day when the scent of dirty socks only faintly permeated rooms. 

That was why Wilbur could tell immediately when the smell drifting from Tommy’s room was unfamiliar — not sweet like a candle but earthy, maybe a little sharp. Or minty? He’d wasn’t sure; the only experience he had with fragrance was the kind that girls put on their necks

It wasn’t a bad smell, not at all. Just strange, uncharacteristic for someone who screamed when people put on too much cologne in the bathroom. 

Wilbur dragged himself out of his desk chair, his spine cracking in protest, and walked across the hall to Tommy’s room. After hesitating for a moment, he knocked quietly on the door.

“Hello?” came a voice from inside.

“It’s Wil,” Wilbur said, assuming that if Tommy hadn’t told him to stay outside, it was alright to come in. 

When he pushed open the door, he was met with a strange sight, one that he wasn’t quite sure how to interpret or describe. 

The first thing that he saw was the smoke, undulating through the room and lit up by interspersed candles — each a deep, glossy black with flames like torches — propped on Tommy’s desk and stacks of books and every flat surface. 

The next thing he saw was Tommy himself, surrounded by bowls of burning leaves, hair raised as if in the wind. His hands were cupped and smoke swirled around him in a vortex.

Wilbur blinked. There was something in Tommy’s hands — something dark but not shapeless, a shadow not on his hands but in it. He blinked again and it was still there, swirling between Tommy’s palms. 

That was when Tommy finally realized that Wilbur had let himself in, glancing up to see him and taking in a sharp breath. 

Just like that, the wind died down and Tommy pressed his palms together tightly. 

When he opened them, they were empty. 

Wilbur blinked several times in quick succession. _Maybe it’s time for an eye appointment,_ he thought. 

“Are you doing drugs?” he asked, gesturing to the smoldering ashes of whatever was in the bowls. 

“It’s sage,” Tommy said, unfolding himself from the ground and pushing open a window. They watched as the smoke poured down the wall of the house, most dissipating in the air. “Sorry, I didn’t realize that it was so smoky.”

Fresh air filled the room and Wilbur wondered where the wind he’d seen earlier had been from.

“It’s fine,” he said, head spinning. “Honestly though, what’s going on? What is all this?”

“It’s—”

“Don’t tell me it’s for a club.”

—for a club!” Tommy finished. 

Wilbur sighed. “For a fucking club,” he said. “Of course it is.”

Tommy nodded, smiling. 

“And what club is it for?”

“Religions club. Seein’ what other religions are like and stuff.”

“I don’t even think that’s a thing.”

“It must be because I go to meetings every Tuesday from three to four.”

“I thought that your cooking club was Tuesdays,” Wilbur said.

“It— it’s on Tuesdays too. It’s later, though,” Tommy said. “And on Thursdays. Just—”

“—Just ask Tubbo,” Wilbur interrupted. “I know.”

They stared at each other.

“I’m glad that you’re broadening your horizons, I guess,” Wilbur continued, leaning against the desk. Next to his elbow, one of the candle flames started to grow in size and stretch, almost curiously, towards him. Tommy’s eyes widened and he snapped his fingers together. Like a chastened pet, the fire shrunk back to a manageable size.

“Maybe I should put those out,” Tommy said quickly. “It’s windy.”

Outside, the air was heavy and the leaves in the trees hung listlessly.

“Sure,” Wilbur said. “Tell Tubbo hi for me, I’ve got homework to do.”

“I will! Try not to fail your classes.”

“Try not to fail _yours._ ”

Wilbur shivered as he walked, the wind playing with his hair and blowing through his thin flannel. When he’d left for class, the weather was more agreeable — the sun out and the clouds just a hint on the horizon. 

On his first step out of the building, he’d instantly regretted forgetting his coat at home; the air was freezing and the last warmth was sucked out of the sky as the sun set, leaving him with the light of dim streetlights.

His steps echoed on the buildings and he felt as if he was walking through a valley, the walls rising up on both sides of him. 

That was when he saw the first shadow. 

It stretched down one of the buildings and could have been cast by a tree if there were any trees nearby — there weren’t. Even next to the streetlight, it was a dark, inky black. 

As he passed it, it shifted, moving towards him slightly. 

He kept walking. 

There were more with each step that he took, reaching from the alleyways and moving, ever-so-slightly towards him. He looked forward and quickened his pace. 

_Trick of the light,_ he thought. _That’s all._

One reached his feet and he forced himself to walk over it, felt a slight pull on the soles of his shoes. When he’d crossed it, his steps left black footprints on the sidewalk like he’d just walked through oil. 

It was dark outside, darker than it should have been. 

The shadows overtook the road ahead and he wanted to stop walking but told himself that he wasn’t scared of the dark, that he had to keep going. 

Then he saw headlights approaching quickly from the pitch-black street, their beams cutting sharp lines through the black. He sighed in relief as the light illuminated him. 

“Get in, big man!” someone yelled from the driver’s seat as the window was rolled down. 

“Tommy?”

He swung into the passenger's seat and Tommy turned to face him. 

“You forgot your coat,” the boy said, pointing to where the brown jacket rested in the backseat. “It’s cold.” He rolled up his window and locked the car doors before turning around and heading home. “And—” he added, brow furrowed, “—dark.”

Pulling his jacket on, Wilbur felt instantly warmer, safer. When he tucked his hands into his pockets, one of his palms closed around the stone that Tommy had given him, his thumb rubbing small circles on its glossy surface. 

“I’m glad … ” Tommy trailed off, hands tight on the steering wheel. 

“What for?” Wilbur asked. 

“Nothing,” the boy said quickly. “Just glad that I found you before you had to walk all the way home without a coat.”

Wilbur was glad too.

“Thanks, Toms,” he said. 

“Anytime.”

“You expect me to believe that you forgot to put water in your Cup-o-Noodles and lit it on fire in the microwave after being in cooking club for months?” Techno asked. 

“We needed a new microwave anyway, big man. It was a blessing in disguise,” Tommy answered.

Tommy was crying. Wilbur knew because he’d been walking down the hall to use the bathroom, so late that it might have been early in the morning rather than at night, when he heard sobbing coming from the boy’s room. 

For a second, he almost kept walking, gave the kid privacy. But the noise was too painful. He knocked. 

“Who is it?” Tommy asked, voice congested with tears.

“Wilbur. Can I come in?”

There was a heavy pause. 

“Yes,” Tommy answered. 

He opened the door quietly and walked into the dark room, saw Tommy scooting over so that there was room on the bed.

“Hey,” he said, sitting down, “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t tell you all of it,” Tommy sniffed. 

“That’s okay,” Wilbur said. “C’mere.”

He stroked Tommy’s hair and, as if they did it every day, Tommy slipped between his arms burying his face in Wilbur’s sweater. 

“Shh,” Wilbur said. “You’re alright.”

“It was—” a sob cut off Tommy's voice, and it took a second for him to continue, “—it was _her_ birthday today.”

 _Oh._ Wilbur froze. There was only one rule that Phil had set in the house before Tommy came and that was that they were never to ask about his family. 

His family, gone in one night, leaving only a terrified boy to deal with the aftermath. His family, a mystery that had been featured in more than a couple of crime shows for a disappearing act that stumped the most experienced investigators. 

He didn’t want to break Phil’s rule, but staying silent would be a mistake too. 

“Tell me about her,” he said, hoping that he wasn’t going to regret saying it. “You don’t have to. But it helps, sometimes.”

“It hurts,” Tommy said. 

“I know,” Wilbur answered, holding him tighter. “I know.”

“My mom— she had the longest hair,” Tommy said, “Beautiful and long and golden. When I was old enough, she taught me how to braid it. Then it was my job to braid my sister’s hair too.”

Wilbur rubbed his back in a comforting, circular motion as he talked. 

“She smelled like vanilla— like cookies that are almost ready to come out of the oven. And she was so kind. Sometimes— sometimes I think that I’m forgetting her— that I’m forgetting all of them.”

“Oh Toms,” Wilbur said softly. “You won’t forget them. I promise that you won’t.”

“How do you know?” the boy asked, eyes shining with tears in the dim light of the room. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because you love them. It’s hard to forget things that you love.”

“I can’t remember what she said or what kind of clothes she wore. I can’t remember her making dinner or picking me up from school—”

“You’ll remember the things that matter.”

“How do you know?” Tommy repeated desperately. “What if I forget her voice?”

“The last time I saw my mom was when I was five,” Wilbur said. “And I will never forget her voice. She sang to me, lullabies, and even if I don’t remember where her freckles were, or what her favorite food was, I’ll never forget her singing.”

Tommy didn’t say anything.

“I promise,” Wilbur whispered. 

He stayed until the boy’s breaths lengthened before gently setting him down in the bed and looking at his face, peaceful in sleep. 

_I promise._

There was a frantic ringing of the doorbell.

“Wilbur?” Phil called from the kitchen, in the middle of making dinner.

“Got it!” he yelled, pushing himself away from his desk. 

He swung it open without checking the peephole; outside was Tubbo, shifting nervously from food to foot.

“Tubbo?” he said, “Where’s Tommy?” The two were always together at one club or another, but the boy didn’t answer right away. 

“Will you walk with me?” Tubbo asked instead. 

“Sure,” he said, and to Phil: “Be back soon!” 

Outside, the weather was nice, if a little chilly. Wilbur zipped up his jacket. 

“What do you—” Tubbo started, “What do you know about Tommy?”

“What do you mean?” Wilbur asked. 

“He’s different,” Tubbo said. “Have you noticed that?”

“I mean, everyone has their quirks. I think that he’s a great kid,” Wilbur answered, unsure of what Tubbo was gearing up to tell him. 

“Surely you’ve noticed _something_ , Wilbur. You really don’t know?” Tubbo asked.

“No?” he said. “Is there something that I should know about?”

“Let’s clear one thing up,” Tubbo said. “He’s not in any clubs.”

“What— what do you mean he’s not in any clubs?” Wilbur thought of everything that had been explained away with excuses, the hours that Tommy spent away from home. “He goes to them nearly every night and so do you.”

Tubbo shook his head slowly. “No we don’t. There are no clubs.”

Wilbur stared, and Tubbo sighed.

“Look, you’re probably not going to believe me but Tommy is magic. And he _sees_ magic. And I think he’s in trouble.”

“Oh,” Wilbur said, less of a word and more a puff of surprise leaving his mouth. Suddenly, the last couple of months clicked together in a perfect explanation. 

His hand closed around the crystal in his pocket as he thought about the salt and the shadows and the burning sage. The cuts that Tommy came home with late at night. 

As strange as it was, he didn’t even doubt that Tubbo was telling the truth.

“Tommy’s in trouble?” he asked. 

“Yes,” Tubbo answered. 

“We’ll have to fix that.”

“—and he leaves me notes with addresses of where he’s going,” Tubbo whispered as they walked up to a warehouse at the edge of the city, “—if he doesn’t check in with me by a certain time, I’m supposed to tell someone. But he always checks in on time. _Always.”_

 _Not this time,_ Wilbur thought grimly. The building loomed in front of them and the straps of his backpack tugged at his shoulders; inside, there was a kitchen knife and bandages and the other things he’d grabbed in a whirlwind of preparation. 

They crept in through the side door, careful to keep their footsteps light and their words quiet. 

Somewhere in the building, there was laughter, loud and echoing. It sent chills down Wilbur’s spine. 

It wasn’t long before they reached a doorway that opened onto a cavernous, empty room. Tommy was in the center of it and in front of him was a man. 

No — a thing that looked almost like a man but was not. Shadows spilled out from its arms and mouth as it talked, face blackened by shadows. 

Tubbo looked scared but not nearly as alarmed as Wilbur. 

“See the shadows?” he whispered, “Tommy can see the things that cast them even though we can’t.”

So it wasn’t really the shadows that moved, it was the things making them. 

“I’ve never seen one that looked like a man,” Tubbo admitted. They crept closer, close enough to hear the thing speak.”

“—got away the first time,” it hissed. “What makes you think you have the right to destroy my hives?”

“They’re bad,” Tommy answered. “ _You’re_ bad.”

“I’m not bad,” it replied. “I’m powerful. You know where that power is from, don’t you Tommy?”

“Shut up,” Tommy hissed.

“Want to join them?”

“Be quiet!”

The thing only laughed, its grating wheezes unnerving. 

“I remember what they sounded like, you know,” it said. 

Tommy screamed, unsheathing a blade and running straight at the thing. But it had predicted his actions and easily knocked away the knife, sending it flying into the darkness and too far for Tommy to reach. 

“Join them,” it said, voice like wind in the leaves. “Join _us._ ”

Wilbur grabbed the knife out of his backpack. 

“Tommy!” he yelled, watching the boy’s eyes flick towards him before he threw the knife, letting it slide across the slick concrete floor. 

It came to a stop near Tommy’s feet and he grabbed it. In his hands, a small shadow appeared, coating the blade.

“I’ll join you,” he said to the thing, the monster in the shape of a man.

“Tommy?” Tubbo whispered. 

The shadows reared out of the thing’s torso and towards Tommy, who was already running. 

He leaped. 

And slammed the blade straight into its neck.

It screamed, spewing red and black. 

And collapsed. 

The shadows milled over the corpse in confusion, wrapping around it tighter and tighter until they all exploded outwards and the body was gone.

Then Tommy was falling too, but Wilbur was there to catch him. 

“I didn’t go to cooking classes,” Tommy said, cocky smile accentuated by a spatter of black across his face, “But I sure know how to use a knife.”

“You do,” Wilbur said, hugging him. He didn’t ever want to let go. "You fucking do, don't you?"

“You did it! You finally killed it,” Tubbo yelled from behind.

“I did,” Tommy replied. “It’s over. It’ll never hurt anyone again.”

“Some people can see them,” Tommy said, spinning a shadow around in his hands, “Most people can’t.”

“What do they do?” Wilbur asked, fascinated by something that he couldn’t see, something that could pass right through him. Tommy had said that they all looked different — some with teeth and some with fur and some with nothing at all — but he couldn’t picture them. 

“They’re not bad or good. Really, they’re just there,” Tommy answered. “You can try to use them for power — but they’ll consume you. Then they get hungry.”

“Was that— was that what that thing was?”

“Yes,” Tommy said. “That was what happened to my family. He — well, even back then, it wasn’t a man anymore — found them. But they wouldn’t attack me because I could see them. I was too young to protect them like I could protect you and the house.”

“I’m sorry,” Wilbur said, not sure what else there was to say. He wished that things had been different, wished that responsibilities were given to adults and not children — Tommy’s burden was heavy enough to make anyone struggle. 

“It’s over now,” Tommy said. “It’s done. And you’re safe.”

“You’re not allowed to ever leave my sight again,” Wilbur said. “Seriously. I can’t believe I ever thought you were in so many clubs.”

“Hey! Maybe I’ll join some now that I have the time!”

“Maybe I’ll come too. I’ve always wanted to learn how to cook.”

“I think you’ve caused more kitchen fires than me.”

“I don’t think that’s true—”

“—it’s true.”

“Tommy?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! this was a little different than what i usually write (and probably more confusing) so feel free to drop questions in the comments if you have any!
> 
> you can come yell at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ghostbandaids) if you want (:
> 
> shameless promo for the art I drew for this fic: [CLICK HERE YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO!!!!](https://twitter.com/ghostbandaids/status/1357917591856177158?s=20)
> 
> if you have the time, i'd love to hear what you thought! comments in my inbox make my day and also make me write faster <3


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